Opinion

No wonder Americans are flocking to see Civil War. Many believe a civil war is coming

Following the assault on Congress on January 6th, 2021, is the prospect of war really that far-fetched?

A scene from the movie Civil War. A survey of filmgoers leaving Civil War found that most, like your correspondent, went to the film not out of interest in independent cinema or action films but because of its 'political dystopian story line'.

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Patrick Smyth
Sat Apr 27 2024 - 06:00

It didn’t exactly do what it said on the tin. A survey of filmgoers leaving Civil War found that most, like your correspondent, went to the film not out of interest in independent cinema or action films but because of its “political dystopian storyline”.

Some of us, perplexed by America’s political turmoil, the phenomenon of Trumpism and what it may yet produce, might well complain we were sold a pup. But complaining that this is not the film we went to see, or the one that should have been made, is pretty pointless.

Based in the not-distant future, Civil War is an all-action road movie full of blood and guts which tells the story of a group of journalists travelling through a war zone from New York to Washington DC to interview a dictatorial president before he is overthrown. The backdrop is a civil war pitching an unlikely alliance of secessionist states – California and Texas – against the government with hints of other breakaway militias ruling other parts of the country.

Director Alex Garland has decided that he is under no obligation to explain to his puzzled audience how we got from here to there, what the politics of the warring parties are, who the good guys might be. The dynamics of the war, its very fact, are incidental, irrelevant. “Some people who dislike the movie – I am one of them –” writes New York Times columnist Ross Douthat with some justice, “think that the underexplanation is a total cop-out, making civil strife seem like a natural disaster or a zombie apocalypse, when in reality it usually represents the extension of politics by awful but reasonable-seeming means.”

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Garland is unapologetic. “I wanted to make journalists the hero because there’s a simple point at the heart of it, which is that in any kind of free country… journalists are not a luxury, they’re a necessity.” Journalism that does not intervene but simply observes.

In reality, the meta story of this film, the reason for its instant box-office appeal to liberal and right wing cinemagoers alike (at least until they got to see it) is much more interesting than the rather lame theorising of its director

And yet his detachment undermines his own case. Spoiler alert: one of our heroes, Joel, stands over a sprawling president about to be shot by militiamen. Hold your fire, he begs, reminding them he’s there to get a quote. “Please don’t let them kill me,” the president pleads. “That’ll do,” mumbles Joel in a line that is easily missed but appears to sum up the director’s real view of journalism. The soldiers complete their task.

[ Is the United States heading for civil war? ]

Are we supposed to accept a message that says the journalist’s valuable role, vital according to Garland, is ultimately just to observe and record, however grim a reality? Or to shudder at Joel’s cynicism?

In reality, the meta story of this film, the reason for its instant box-office appeal to liberal and right wing cinemagoers alike (at least until they got to see it) is much more interesting than the rather lame theorising of its director. For them, for the first time in many generations, there seems a real possibility that deeply divided – and heavily armed – America may go this way. The toxic divide in politics at the highest level, the attempted assault on Congress on January 6th, 2021, encouraged by a president with contempt for the rule of law, the mobilisation of armed militias “to defend” Texas’s border, the ubiquity of the poisonous, unrestrained, lying narratives of social media… all harbingers of a breakdown in social consensus that could tip into outright conflict. People are scared.

[ Civil War director Alex Garland: ‘Journalists are seen with contempt by a lot of people now. I really object to that’ ]

In one 2022 poll, 43 per cent of Americans said they thought a civil war within the next decade was at least somewhat likely. More recent polling by a civil rights organisation found 53 per cent of likely voters believed the country was on the path to a second civil war. Some 2 per cent of the country’s population died in the civil war of the 19th century, and its shadow still hangs over the political culture of this country.

[Political scientist Barbara Walter] argues that the prospect of such a conflict isn’t just metaphorical and believes the country is facing a decade or two of political instability and violence

Other surveys show related concerns: 49 per cent of adults in one survey said they expect violence from the losing side in future elections.

Barbara Walter, a University of California political scientist, is the author of the recent and much debated How Civil Wars Start. She argues that the prospect of such a conflict isn’t just metaphorical and believes the country is facing a decade or two of political instability and violence that could include assassinations of politicians or judges and the rise of militia groups.

Is it really that far-fetched? Stephen Marche (author of The Next Civil War) reminds us of the words of Henry Adams, grandson of John Quincy Adams, at the beginning of the 20th century: “Not one man in America wanted the Civil War, or expected or intended it.” Marche adds: “The greatest political danger in America isn’t fascism, and it isn’t wokeness. It’s inertia. America needs a warning.”

Civil War, despite its director’s intentions, might just be that.

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